Harpdog Brown & The Uptown Blues Band

Canada’s Classic Blues icon, Harpdog Brown is back on the road again bringing his Uptown Blues Band to Ground Zero Acoustic Lounge here in Parksville. See Harpdog Brown like you’ve never seen or heard before!

Harpdog Brown has grown a reputation as a real-deal purveyor of classic electric blues. Think of the old Chess Records and Sun Records of the late 40's and early 50’s. These days he’s been touring more and more as Harpdog Brown & the Uptown Blues Band - a vintage New Orleans Blues sound featuring, piano,clarinet/sax, upright-bass and drums. Still a vintage vibe, just a different vintage! This music will move you! They perform mostly originals yet they often include great songs of the masters from that era. Think Louis Jordan, Satchmo, Sonny Boy Williamson, Wynonie Harris, even Duke Ellington. Audiences are raving about this new show!

He’s been called a Blues Evangelist, and that’s a very fitting moniker. "I speak the blues like it's the truth, and it is”, he was recently quoted. "I do feel like I'm a servant of the people. A missionary if you will. Music can heal people if they pay attention to the messages in these songs.” He delivers those messages using the vintage sound whether it be with his lowdown classic blues band the Travelin’ Blues Show or with his new Uptown Blues Band. Harpdog says "Blues has a healing power. It's a beautiful celebration of our perfectly flawed lives. We help people forget about their issues of the moment and then, they might just realize that we all have our issues, and that's OK."

Vancouver-based Harpdog Brown was born in Edmonton in 1962, an adopted child who has felt somewhat detached his whole life - "a lifelong battle of not feeling like I belonged. I feel like I was born for the circus, you know, born to travel. The blues tapped me on the shoulder years ago and said 'this is where you belong, son'. So the blues became my circus and there's no better way to travel than with a band!”

Harpdog Brown is a gifted vocalist and an imaginative harmonica player. Piano man Dave Webb has been working with Harpdog over the years and they share an intuition that only comes with many hours and miles shared on and off stage. Billy Joe Abbott is the newest and youngest addition to the band. He learned his craft first hand from some of the greatest Clarinetists in New Orleans. Rounding out the band is one of the best drummers in the land, Bob Grant!

Harpdog has won three consecutive Maple Blues Awards for Harmonica Player of the Year (2014/2015/2016), the Fraser Valley Music Award, has three consecutive Western Canadian Music Awards Nominations, a Juno Nomination and is the only Canadian to win the coveted Muddy Award. In 2016, he was nominated for 3 Maple Blues Awards (Harmonica Player, Male Vocalist and Album of the Year) for his latest release Travelin’ With The Blues. Travelin' With The Blues released in 2016 is still sitting in the top roots and blues charts and follows his Top 20 charting 2014 release What It Is (Roots Music Report International Blues Albums).

Get off the couch and some see some seriously vintage blues that’s lots of fun!

“This band could play anywhere in the world, in any venue, large or small, and blues fans of all stripes would love this show." - Holger Petersen, SiriusXM, CKUA and CBC broadcaster and President of Stony Plain Records

REVIEWS

Harpdog is a great blues man. He is in total command onstage - and enjoying every minute. - Holger Petersen, Blues Programmer CKUA and CBC Radio.

Brown is an excellent singer and band leader who reminds me a lot of the late Hock Walsh and he has put together a program that you can often hear in clubs but seldom so well played and. . . heavy on blues feeling - John Valenteyn, President Toronto Blues Society

Isn’t it nice to know that all the “fast food / flavor of the week” blues artists are easily dispensed with when compared with the REAL THING. I mean the bona fide, totally authentic purveyor of heart and soul, down-in-the-alley blues. And, believe you me, Harpdog Brown and the Bloodhounds are purveyors with pedigree. - Andy “Blues Boy” Grigg, Chief Editor Blues ReviewMagazine

They play the blues naturally and without gimmicks or pretension, and when you combine that with their talent, it places them at the top of their trade… You won’t find a better blues band in Canada. - West Coast Entertainment Magazine

​These bluesmen are just too good to be missed. - Blues Notes, Portland

These guys play with passion, emotion and honesty, and instead of overwhelming their audience with technical genius, they keep it simple except when the time is right for going to town. That’s the essence of Blues - Missoula Independent, Montana